Illinois Connection

Balliett lives in Chicago's Hyde Park.

Biographical and Professional Information

Blue Balliett taught third grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools before becoming a full-time writer. A New York Times bestselling author, she wrote the award-winning children's novel ''Chasing Vermeer'' of which, Warner Brothers has acquired the film rights. Her books have been published in 34 languages.

Published Works

The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts, Down East Books, 1993

Chasing Vermeer, Scholastic Press , 2005

Nantucket Ghosts, Down East Books, 2006

The Wright 3, Scholastic Press, 2007

Calder Game, Scholastic Press, 2008

The Danger Box, Scholastic Press, 2010

Hold Fast, Scholastic Press, 2013

Pieces and Players, Scholastic, 2015

Out of the Wild Night, Scholastic, 2018

Selected Titles At Your Library

When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal. First book in the series featuring art sleuth friends Calder and Petra.

Nantucket Island has just more than 10,000 year-round residents -- and a sizeable population of very real ghosts. The 44 tales in this book were collected as oral history. Some of these spirits are benign, even protective; others terrorize the humans who encounter them. All are memorable.

In the midst of a series of unexplained accidents and mysterious coincidences, sixth-graders Calder, Petra, and Tommy lead their classmates in an attempt to keep Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Robie House from being demolished. Second book in the series featuring art sleuth friends Calder, Petra, and Tommy.

When seventh-grader Calder Pillay disappears from a remote English village--along with an Alexander Calder sculpture to which he has felt strangely drawn--his friends Petra and Tommy fly from Chicago to help his father find him. Third book in the series featuring art sleuth friends Calder, Petra, and Tommy.

In small-town Michigan, twelve-year-old Zoomy and his new friend Lorrol investigate the journal found inside a mysterious box and find family secrets and a more valuable treasure, while a dangerous stranger watches and waits.

On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

Mary W. Chase died on Nantucket Island just over one hundred years ago, but she is still there, in the house she once lived in, and she wants to keep it that way-- but first she must somehow contact a group of children who are interested in preserving historic homes on the island.